Additionally, this newsletter highlights several: (1) blog entries on the AIMS portal; (2) good practices in Data Management; (3) upcoming events focused on Research Data Management and Semantics; (4) e-learning initiatives and recorded webinars sharing knowledge about Information & Data Access services, as well as (5) a bibliography with some references for published open access journal articles and other works on a number of Information & Data Management issues. So be invited to get the story told ...

PREAMBLE : "We believe Open Knowledge can empower everyone, enabling people to work together to tackle local and global challenges, understand our world, expose inefficiency, challenge inequality and hold governments and companies to account", - Open Knowledge International. The "good news is that open education is increasing access, lowering costs and improving student learning ... The key to this ... education opportunity is Open Educational Resources (OER), freely available materials that can be legally downloaded, edited and shared to better serve all students", - Sharing legally and freely for better learning, UNESCO.

Focus on the E-Learning Activities from AIMS

AIMS is particularly interested in promoting capacity development activities in agricultural sciences to enable and engage people in having access to scientific information. The last quarter of 2017 will offer a number of e-learning opportunities to researchers, practitioners, policy makers, librarians, IT specialists, journalists and even students to become better producers and users of the information and data resources.

Another online course - entitled Access to Scientific Information Resources in Agriculture (ASIRA) for Low-income Countries (also provided by FAO in collaboration with Research4Life) - will take place on 30th October 2017 and last for three weeks until 19th November. Up to now, 300+ people have been trained including researchers, librarians, practitioners and students in the agricultural domain. The course is enriched with number of webinars designed to offer learners a broader perspective in the relevant areas. More information about the course is available on the course web page.

AIMS is happy to keep you updated about the related activities !

POSTSCRIPTUM : "Right now, the switch to open-access educational materials would help remove some of the existing barriers to upward mobility, and would have lasting implications on future generations of students", - Daily Collegian.

HIGHLIGHTS

Below you will find a selection of some blog entries published on AIMS. The full news listing can be read HERE*.

Modern data management should outline any processing activities, as well as include data protection and security issues to ensure institutional data compliance with national, regional and international regulations.

"Remember: Good data management is essential to ensure that data can be preserved and remain accessible in the long-term, so it can be re-used and understood by future researchers. Begin thinking about how you’ll manage your data before you start collecting it", - University of Virginia Library.

"Researchers believe that one of the goals of introducing e-learning was to revolutionize the learning process, either by facilitating many of the challenges that face instructors and learners daily, or by presenting opportunities that might have not existed before", - e-Learn Magazine.

The Information Management Resource Kit (IMARK) is a partnership-based e-learning initiative (supported by FAO of the UN) that aims to enable development practitioners to acquire skills, competences, behaviors and attitudes in knowledge sharing and information management.

IMARK consists of a suite of free e-learning courses being developed using the latest pedagogical models and methodologies, and provide an interactive environment for self-paced learning.

openHPI is the open educational Internet platform of the German Hasso Plattner Institute. openHPI interactive free open online courses cover different subjects in Information and Communications Technology (ICT), computer science and IT systems engineering, including Semantic Web Technologies and Big Data Analytics.

- Methodological aspects of the use of geospatial technology for agriculture statistics;- Interoperability and standards for sharing spatial data;- Geospatial, technology data and tools for monitoring global environmental trends and changes related to agriculture.

Enroll now into a Self-Paced course: "Big Data Fundamentals" (starts on October 24, 2017) and learn how big data is driving organisational change and essential analytical tools and techniques, including data mining and PageRank algorithms.

Explore eLearning modules available on European Data Portal and discover more about Open Data. The e-learning modules suit all levels from beginners to experts. For best results, complete all 16 modules following their order for a solid grounding in all aspects of Open Data. Or, if you prefer to pick a specific topic, feel free to proceed straight to this module.

MOOC List is: (1) an aggregator (directory) of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) offered by different providers; (2) a website where you can find free online courses (MOOCs) offered by the best universities around the world. ​​​​On the home page you can: - View the Upcoming courses (for the next 30 days) - View the Last submitted or updated courses - Browse by Course Categories and MOOC's Providers (For more information see: MOOC List FAQs).

OPEN AUDIO-VISUALS CORNER (recorded Webinars)

PoolParty is a world-class semantic technology suite that offers sharply focused solutions to your knowledge organization and content business.PoolParty is the most complete semantic middleware on the global market.You can use it to enrich your information with valuable metadata to link your business and content assets automatically.

The Research Data Alliance (RDA) has developed a Catalogue of Metadata Standards and tools aimed at researchers and those who support them. The Metadata Standards Catalog provides different details about metadata standards and tools and will improve the interoperability of metadata in different standards.

23 Things is a recognized training concept that supports flexible, self-paced learning to help librarians get involved in research data management into 10 categories. This LIBER Webinar explores the content of both the 23 Things resource from Research Data Allience, and introduces the in-depth, 23-week training program.

Certification of repositories can be an important contribution to ensuring the reliability and durability of digital repositories and hence the potential for sharing data over a long period of time. All Research Data Alliance (RDA) recorded webinars

The scope of the AIMS Newsletter (see AIMS NW Archive) is to bring under the attention of the AIMS community recent news, events and achievements in the field of (agricultural) information and data management.If you have any contribution, suggestion, or need assistance with the newsletter, please contact us at AIMS@fao.org.You received this message because you are subscribed to theAIMS Newsletter.